100 books to read!

In 2000 Christianity Today surveyed their editors and contributors about the 100 books published in the 20th Century that were of greatest significance to Christians. The list is worth looking over and considering what you should read next.

A model Christian academic

This morning I read this fascinating obituary from the Times of Professor Donald Wiseman (1918-2010). I read it because one of his students, David Baker (Ashland Seminary) is coming to Brisbane to teach an MA subject on the Joseph Narrative at Queensland Theological College.

I wish I was somewhere else

Actually, I don't.

But, to me this is the message I get from observing peoples obsession with (addiction to?) their mobile phones and texting. I actually don't have one. I think they do have there role. But, why not talk to the people you are actually with or focus on enjoying your current surroundings and engaging with them.

'Hello Mum... The Doc wants to know if I have difficulty making decisions. What do you think?'

Polkinghorne on emergence in science and theology

At the end of the month I am speaking at a conference Quantum Theory and the Nature of Reality in honour of the 80th birthday of Sir John Polkinghorne, who has done so much to promote a meaningful and scholarly dialogue between science and theology.

As well as giving the talk I have been asked to prepare a white paper (due this friday), Is emergence the nature of physical reality? Consequently, I am wrestling with a chapter The Nature of Physical Reality, from Polkinhorne's 1991 book, Reason and Reality: The Relationship between Science and Theology, which was reprinted in the journal Zygon. Here are a few extracts I am trying to digest.

Abstract. This account of the dynamical theory of chaos leads to a metaphysical picture of a world with an open future, in which the laws of physics are emergent-downward approximations to a more subtle and supple reality and in which there is downward causation through information input as well as upward causation through energy input. Such a metaphysical picture can accommodate both human and divine agency.

Subatomic particles are not only not “more real” than a bacterial cell, they also have no greater privileged share in determining the nature of reality.

.... If apparently open behavior is associated with underlying apparently deterministic equations, which is to be taken to have the greater ontological seriousness—the behavior or the equations? Which is the approximation and which is the reality?

....epistemology and ontology are intimately connected. One can see how natural this view is for a scientist by considering the early history of quantum theory. Heisenberg’s famous discussion of thought experiments, such as the gamma-ray microscope, dealt with what can be measured. It was an epistemological analysis. Yet for the majority of physicists it led to ontological conclusions. They interpret the uncertainty principle as not being merely a principle of ignorance (as Bohm, for example, would interpret it) but as a principle of genuine indeterminacy. In an analogous way, it seems to me to be a coherent possibility to interpret the undoubted unpredictability of so much of physical process as indicating that process to be ontologically open.....

d’Espagnat [who discussed the philosophical implications of quantum theory] does not go all the way with Kant. He insists that independent reality is veiled rather than inaccessible; it is elusive rather than absolutely unknowable.

I am driven to greater metaphysical boldness .... I believe that his cautious invocation of veiledness is, at the least, not inconsistent with the kind of openness about the nature of reality that I am trying to explore.

.... such a world of intertwined order and novelty is just that which might be expected as the creation of a God both faithful and loving, who will endow God’s world with the twin gifts of reliability and freedom....

The correct lower-level description can only provide an envelope of possibility within which top-down causation will find its scope for realization. 

..... God’s interaction with God’s own world can be expected to respect its freedom (including our own). God’s acts will be veiled within the unpredictability of complex process. They may be discernible by faith, but they will not be demonstrable by experiment.

A poetic life

Last night we had dinner with some friends from Zimbabwe and they mentioned the fascinating life story of Arthur Shearly Cripps (1869-1952). He was an English Anglican clergyman who spent many years in Southern Rhodesia and had a significant passion for social justice issues in Africa. He was also a gifted poet who was able to support himself from royalties from his published poems. His life inspired his great-great nephew, Owen Sheers to write The Dust Diaries, which in 2005 was the Welsh Book of the Year.

What is the object of our study?

Last week I had a nice discussion with Ben Seligmann about my paper on Emergence and Theology. One helpful question he asked is "Why is the concept of emergence helpful for theology?" Perhaps the paper does not answer this clearly enough. When one has an emergent perspective in science the focus is on the object and phenomena under study (e.g. turbulence in fluids). What is its nature? What principles and concepts describe its behaviour? One avoids getting distracted by a reductionist approach which looks for some "deeper" and more "fundamental" phenomena (e.g., the molecular nature of fluids).

So the focus of theology should be on the Tri-une God revealed in Jesus Christ. One needs to be careful about being distracted by genealogies, hermeneutical issues, sociology, church government, .....

As Barth, said:

“If theology allows itself to be called .... a “science”, in so doing it declares:

1. that like all other so-called sciences it is a human concern with a definite object of knowledge,

2. that like all others it treads a definite and self-consistent path of knowledge, and

3. that like all others it must give an account of this path to itself and to all others who are capable of concern for this object and therefore of treading this path….

to the discharge of its own task it must absolutely subordinate and if necessary sacrifice all concern for what is called science elsewhere. The existence of other sciences, and the praiseworthy fidelity with which many of them at least pursue their own axioms and methods, can and must remind it that it must pursue its own task in due order and with the same fidelity”

Church Dogmatics 1.1, The Doctrine of the Word of God, p.7-8.

A violent reality, from beginning to end

Who are the four men of the apocalypse in Revelation 6? When will they come? These are natural questions to ask when puzzling through Revelation?

But, maybe they have already come! Perhaps Revelation is actually describing the way the world is today. Consider this passage:

¹Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, "Come!" ²And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.

³When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" ⁴And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

The world is a very violent place. Surely this is an undeniable reality. But, we seem to be often surprised and shocked by this. This should bring us back to Genesis 4, where Cain murders Abel and Lamech describes his bloodthirsty lust for vengeance:

²³Lamech said to his wives:

"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
²⁴ If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold,
then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold."

Cain and Abel, by Titian c. 1570

Lamech is alluding to God's promise to protect Cain and take sevenfold vengeance on anyone who attacked Cain. Lamech has twisted God's gracious offer of protection to Cain and justify his own violence.

It is striking to me how in Genesis 4:13-15, God's judgement on Cain was limited.

The "chronology" and "historicity" of both Genesis and Revelation are confusing and debatable. But, they are very clear on certain realities: man's violent injustice and God's merciful and perfect justice.